


Something's Wrong in the Never Realm

by IWillKeepFighting



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: (they call each other stupid that's all), Affectionate Name-calling, Elemental power, Gen, Green Ninja, How Do I Tag This, Ice Emperor, Ninja Bros, TECHNICALLY still not au!, Theories, Vex is mentioned, but I'm not tagging him, but also... not au?, just how I think it should've gone, ninjago s11e17, ninjago season 11, ninjago season 11 spoilers, not canon, now featuring More Theories!, ns11 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2020-09-30 11:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20446058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IWillKeepFighting/pseuds/IWillKeepFighting
Summary: There’s something wrong with this realm. Kai knows it, felt it in his bones the moment they arrived, but it IS the Never Realm, so he figured everyone was feeling it and he ignored it.(My take on how episode 17 could've gone, with my theories on how the ninja's powers work.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title: because they are in the Never Realm, and something is wrong. Voila.

There’s something wrong with this realm. Kai knows it, felt it in his bones the moment they arrived, but it _is _ the Never Realm, so he figured everyone was feeling it and he ignored it.

He finds out that no, the only thing the other ninja feel about this realm is a foggy sense of unease, which he feels too—

But there’s something _wrong_ with this realm. They‘ve all gathered around the fire pit, huddling miserably for warmth, and Kai has nothing to offer. Not a flame, not a spark, not a whiff of smoke. He can feel it, the dim sense of his element deep inside, struggling to catch light and give him what he needs to keep them all from freezing to death—

But it’s being snuffed out. Repeatedly, he gets close: he concentrates, coaxes his power to the surface, to where he can feel it (and oh, the first time, it was _amazing_ to know his power wasn’t gone anymore) and he focuses even more.  _These people will freeze_ _,_ he repeats to himself. 

It should be enough, knowing lives are at stake. He can feel it; it IS enough. His power is  there .

But the flames are snuffed out before they ever reach his hands, slipping from his grasp and dying under the fierce ache of the cold.

That’s what’s wrong with this realm. It’s cold, duh, but more than that: the cold feels  _alive_ . This is what the others aren’t feeling, the reason matches won’t work and fires can’t be lit, the thing rendering him useless: Fire can’t live here.

The cold is unrelenting. He tries for hours, alternatively meditating and actively attempting to create the tiniest flame to light even just a twig. Logically he knows it won’t work, it’s just— it’s just that that hasn’t ever stopped them before. They always win, somehow.

The cold, _this_ cold , is an enemy he doesn’t know how to fight. Fire is the logical weapon, yet it isn’t working. They need another option.

(They need Zane.)

He keeps trying. Early on, someone had draped a blanket around his shoulders, and he’d hated that he needed it, but with his inner fire continually dying, he isn’t the furnace that the others always tease him for being. (They still crowd around him, too used to doing so whenever things got chilly on the Bounty to do otherwise.)

He keeps _trying_ and it’s tiring, and simply being this cold is tiring, and it’s only a matter of time before he drifts off while meditating. It’s only for a moment, or maybe a few minutes, but when he opens his eyes he sees  he’s not the only one. While he’s been focused (and/or dozing), many of the villagers have fallen asleep, in groups of tangled limbs and no boundaries in the name of sharing warmth.

He is, in fact, the only one sitting upright in his own pile of ninja, practically sandwiched that way with Jay passed out against one shoulder, Lloyd curled up on the other side, and someone at his back.

That someone must be Cole, because Kai happens to be facing the door and Nya has just entered. She’s silent, shuts the door quickly to keep some of the cold out, but goes directly to him as soon as they make eye contact. “Nothing, huh,” she murmurs, and he shakes his head. “Me either,” she sighs, and he remembers that she’d been having trouble with her own powers, but he hadn’t known it was bad enough to make her voice that resigned—

“Hey,” Nya is saying, but not to him. She’s gently shaking Jay by the shoulder. “Patrol. You’re up.”

The Lightning Ninja mumbles something incoherent, and while Kai would love to keep his extra blanket, he knows they have to maintain a vigilant watch for those Blizzard Samurai. “Up,” he says, and shifts his arm, first gently and then less so.

It doesn’t take much more to get Jay up, and though he grumbles as he goes, he does go. (Kai’s just surprised that Lloyd didn’t wake up and insist on keeping watch himself, but that’s sure to happen sooner or later.)

The villagers can keep watch perfectly well. The ninja are just helping, seeing as they’re being fed and given shelter and the attack didn’t happen until after their arrival and that’s usually not a coincidence—

Kai takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, before returning to meditation. But he's drifted off once already, and Nya has taken Jay's spot and gotten comfortable at exactly the right height that if he tilts his head just so, leaning on her, he can just sort of close his eyes and go to sleep and hope his neck won't kill him for it.

-

He wakes at the sound of someone calling his name insistently, and practically the moment he opens his eyes there's a fish being shoved at him. It takes him a groggy few seconds to put context to that.

Nya is forcing everyone on their team to eat, because while the tiny village isn't used to feeding five extra people, it's not for lack of resources. There's enough fish to go around. They just can't cook it, and this is _not_ what sushi is supposed to be, but Nya is not taking any complaining: they will eat or they will face her wrath. They eat.

Cole gets up, saying he'll go take some to Lloyd and the couple of villagers on watch. With that, Kai should have no more human blankets — he can see Jay across the fire pit, chatting with Sorla, and he can hear Nya's voice from behind him somewhere — but he's somehow still propped up. Just a quick glance shows that there's a kid napping at his side, and it takes a bit of wriggling to not dislodge that one while turning to look behind himself to see that, yes, the pressure on his back is another random child. (It also shows him that he did in fact get a crick in his neck, he must've slumped forward in his sleep when his human blankets switched out for shorter ones.)

He's... not sure why there are kids smushed against him. His powers haven't kicked in while he slept, so he wouldn't exactly be warmer than anybody else here— in fact, where the kids are leaning on him, they're practically radiating heat. Are they sick or something?

He's trying to work a hand free from the blanket so that he can check their temperatures, but then Nya is right there and she'll know, he can just ask her. "You were shivering," she says, lowering herself to the ground and sitting in front of him.

That, yes, that would be an answer to his first question, about why he's got kids napping on him, but more importantly: "Are they sick?" he asks urgently. His sister's brow furrows, like she's confused; he's got a hand free now, so he carefully places it against the forehead of the kid at his side, and confirms, "He's burning up." He feels the same worrying heat at his back and gestures vaguely behind himself. "That one too."

Nya reaches out, sets her own hand against the boy's forehead. He's blinking, waking up, and Nya's expression is so worried that Kai is preparing to panic, of course people would be getting sick, cold _does_ that , why won't his stupid powers just break through and get a source of heat in here—

There's a hand on his forehead, and his sister speaking worriedly, "Kai, you're freezing." She shifts, grabs at the blanket that's fallen and tugs it back up over his shoulder.

"Of course I'm freezing, this _place_ is freezing," he grumbles, trying to swat her away. She stills, her face going tight, pinched, and he narrows his eyes. "Hey. What's that face. That's not a good face. What."

"Kai," she says, and she's using her scared-but-trying-to-hide-it voice, that's never  ever good, "it's not _that_ cold in here." He stares, uncomprehending, and she gestures around them. "There are a few dozen people in here, we're keeping each other warm."

Everyone around them is acting normal, if maybe a bit nervous, but no one is shivering. Only a few of the older folks even have blankets now. There's a kid or two doing their best to run around in the crowded space, and the kids that had been napping are stirring, making kid-waking-up noises that immediately precede them jumping right to their feet, not so much as slowed by discomfort, and they scurry off to join their friends.

But Kai feels the loss of warmth keenly, and he has to hold his blanket closer, feels the beginning of a tremble and has to deliberately  not shiver. How does no one else feel it? Yes they're in a closed space with a bunch of people, yes that should equal the relative comfort that everyone else is apparently feeling, but it's so cold, it's just  _so cold_.

Nya has scooted close, and it's all he can do to not startle as she wraps an arm across his shoulders and his breath catches, because— because his sister has always run cool, always took delight in poking an exposed ankle with her weirdly chilly feet when she was little, giggling at his yelp when she caught him by surprise, and it makes sense in hindsight because of her powers— but now she feels like the furnace that  he's supposed to be.

"It's like hugging an ice cube," she's mumbling. "Or Zane." And oh yeah, the whole reason they came to this freezing place, _his_ powers would sure have come in handy when they were trying to fortify the village earlier.

Nya falters only for a moment, and then she raises her head a little, raising an arm as well to flag down— "Lloyd!" she calls as the Green Ninja re-enters the room, along with a few villagers, and there's a small shuffle as those now up for a watch shift head out. Blankets are handed to those coming in (at least now Kai's not the only not-super-old person with one, but he squashes that thought, that's not polite) and once Lloyd is wearing one like a cape, he comes over. "Kai's still freezing," Nya says without preamble, her arm tightening just a bit around his shoulders.

Lloyd mumbles something about how he is too, and goes to sit down, before Nya suggests, "You might wanna sit by me for now," and Kai has to agree with her. The younger ninja's only just come in from the _actual_ freezing cold, sitting by a human ice cube isn't gonna help much. (Again he thinks of Zane, and wonders whether their nindroid brother feels like this all the time— but no. Zane's cold is different. It just is.)

It only takes a beat for Lloyd to realize, and then he goes and sits by Nya, curling up against her the same as he'd done to Kai earlier, an improbably small bundle of green ninja and red blanket. Nya shifts, maneuvers her free arm behind Lloyd, and plucks the hood from his head, then tugs at his blanket so it's up around his neck. He doesn't even grumble, just sighs a little and nestles in and? somehow appears smaller?

Kai had to turn his head to see any of that, but gosh, they sure have an adorable little brother.

—a little brother who's cold, and could be warming up a lot faster if _someone's_ stupid powers would just WORK already—

He sits up a little straighter and shuts his eyes. Nya notices, of course, and scoots just that little bit closer, and that probably makes Lloyd have to shuffle over too, but he stops paying attention to them. Really stops, and turns to all their years of Sensei-enforced meditation, and is able to tune out the whole roomful of people and their activity and conversations.

His focus turns inward, but he reaches further than he would to meditate, searching for the fire he's had his whole life. He knows it's not gone — he felt it earlier, and Sorla had given advice that resembled Wu's enough that he'd decided to take it to heart — but it had slipped away again while he was sleeping.

It takes time, but he finds it again. A wisp of an inner flame, something he has to coax instead of control, care directed towards keeping it alive rather than keeping it from exploding— the point is, this is not how fire usually behaves, and that's part of why it's so hard.

He tells himself, firmly, that something's wrong. That he can't help his family like this, that they  need the Fire Ninja here, that he's no good to _anyone_ frozen . He allows himself to worry: why is he so cold? why just him? what's _wrong_ with him? If he doesn't recover, if he doesn't get his flame back, who's gonna keep his siblings alive in this frozen world? Who's gonna keep Lloyd alive?

It should be more than enough fuel to burn bright and hot. It isn't. It's only just barely enough to give him that vague sense of standing near a campfire when it's brisk and windy, when he would be right by the flames and the heat wouldn't carry any further than his hands.

But it's progress and he'll absolutely take it. He eases himself back to physical awareness, lets the distant hum of conversations filter into something _slightly_ more distinct, tries to get that sense he found to carry into his body.

It's supposed to be bright and fierce, deep in his core, maybe not running wildly all the time these days but still ever-present, manifesting as physical warmth that others could feel. Now he settles for that feeling of a struggling campfire, willing his hands to feel the warmth he remembers from nights camping with his brothers.

It works. He _feels_ it . He fuels it with those memories, remembering s'mores and a singed gi and stealing Sensei Wu's hat to fan dying embers — he fans at his own fire similarly now, remembering how the fire felt until he really, actually feels it again, opens his eyes and wrests an arm (the one Nya isn't on) free of the blanket, holds his hand out and THERE ARE FLAMES. Coming from his hand. _Fire_ is BACK , baby—

"Kai!" Nya and Lloyd exclaim, shrieks of delight, and Jay's in there somewhere, the villagers are echoing them, he's being hugged from both sides.

But he's only aware of that for an instant (a FANTASTIC instant) before he feels something like a vicious punch in the gut. The flames stutter out, just like his breath does, and he can't even cry out, just squeezes his eyes shut and bows in on himself. His fire comes from his heart; right now, there's an icy fist clenching around it, harsh and fierce and— and it's FRIGID, his heart's being _frozen_ and even the pain of it is rapidly going numb, he can't, he can't feel— he can't  _feel anything_ —

Until he can, a little bit, he feels an energy so deeply familiar, it's green and gold, it's Lloyd, this was the  source of his power once, if anything can save him it's this—

Physically, he's gone rigid, curled forward until his head touches his knees, right arm locked straight out where he had ever-so-briefly held fire again. He heaves for breath, and again, and feels like he's not getting enough air, but he opens his eyes and his only impediment is a set of arms locked around him from the right, someone who's knelt by him, who's glowing with pulsing green energy that's the only thing keeping the ice around his heart at bay—

Oh, that's Lloyd. Lloyd is pouring his energy into Kai, barraging the ice with an attack that resembles fire for its ferocity, allowing him to breathe, taking an edge off the  cold cold _cold_ and unfreezing him enough that the harsh numbness is slowly, slowly replaced by a deep ache.

The ice recedes, and the ache it leaves behind goes deeper, bitterer. But at last he can breathe, and he can feel, and the pain is better than the awful, cold numbness.

The green energy fades, slightly, carefully. He knows Lloyd's making sure the ice won't return as soon as he lets up, but it's not coming back, it sure left its mark but it's gone, so he takes a deeper breath and offers a ragged, "I'm good."

The words leave his mouth, and Lloyd eases up, and all at once  _it comes back_ . Kai has to gasp at the icy shock, he can't talk he can't say that it's back _he can't feel_ he can't feel  _anything_ — but Lloyd must be able to sense it, because the green energy returns too and he can breathe.

What he can't do is focus. The others are panicking, he can hear a general commotion and see the different colours of his family, but it's all a blur being rapidly lost to the cold, cold, _cold_ that's not stopping this time, the gentle warmth that's always been part of the Green Ninja's energy isn't reaching him—

"Kai, look at me—  focus , Kai!" Lloyd's energy isn't reaching, but his voice does, and Kai can manage that one small bit of focus to meet his eyes. His little brother is using his Master voice. "That's it. You need to focus on me." On him and his even-greener-than-usual eyes, glowing, Lloyd's developed such good control but his energy is spiraling all over the place, maybe that's why it's not reaching— "Our powers have the same source, Kai you have to follow that, where do you normally get your element from?"

"He-heart," Kai manages somehow, past painfully chattering teeth, and oh yeah he's more than trembling, violently shaking in someone's arms, someone trying to hold him still enough to let Lloyd stay close. "It-ss f-f-reez-ing—"

"That's okay, I'm dealing with that," Master Lloyd says, steady. "It's not going to freeze you out, not entirely, you have to fight back and call on your element. You did it before, I saw it, we don't even need flames this time. Just follow the path of energy and I can help."

He keeps going, but doesn't say anything new, just gives Kai a voice to track. Okay. Okay, he can— he can totally call for fire. Doesn't matter whether it answers or not, he just has to give Lloyd an opening, something to direct his own powers at— yeah. Yeah. He doesn't shut his eyes as he tries to focus, but his field of vision does glaze over until he just vaguely sees green. Green's cool. It's good. He's looking for green, the idea is to feel it so it can help. Just gotta get it there. Just gotta— not die as his heart just _stops_ for a second—

"It's okay, I got it, I've got you—" and hey, there's green now, flooding in and combating the ice with brute force, which actually kind of hurts a lot. But he's supposed to be focusing, right, he needs to get to his _own_ power . What worked earlier? Warm fuzzies? Happy memories? Maybe the very immediate risk of death will trigger something.

It's not his fault that he can't focus, when his heart gives out again, and there's a very real and physical pain in his chest. Green is swooping in with renewed force, but it's not melting the ice, it's just colliding with it, he doesn't know how much more he can take so he has to call his fire _now_ before he's killed two ways at once—

Happy memories. Imminent death. Neither's working, what else — his family? Lloyd? Where's Lloyd, right, he's helping, he's duking it out with the mysterious magic ice that's trying to kill Kai—

... wait. Is Lloyd fighting alone?

If Lloyd's fighting with green energy, and this ice thing is some magic or whatever, then what if Zane's energy theories are right and one power source can reach another power source on some meta-psychic plane (or whatever it was)?

Holy— what if whatever-this-is takes out Kai and then moves on to the Green Ninja? And they're all connected, what if it goes from Lloyd to the whole rest of the family?

No . Not gonna happen. Not while he's breathing, and he _is_ breathing at the moment, and oh _boy_ did this stupid magic ice pick the  _wrong_ Fire Ninja to mess with—

Said stupid magic ice gets an _inferno_ for its trouble, and the numbing grip is melted away in an instant. Sure, it _tries_ to come right back, he feels the cold trying, but as _if_ he's going to let that thing get to him again,  as _IF_ he's going to give it a path to Lloyd—

Lloyd, who is as amazing as ever at foiling plans made for his safety, and whose energy is blasting along just the same as Kai's, forcing the cold back, back, until there's only fire and the the green energy powering it.

It's been a long time since their powers were so connected, but it's a reminder that Lloyd is the one to have unlocked their abilities back in the day, and it's incredible. Kai doesn't fully understand what's happening, but he gets the sense that the source of the ice is retreating, and the brothers apparently share an opinion on that because they take chase and—

"Kai let  _GO_ !" 

The yell, and a huge burst of energy from the one who yelled, barrels him into a much more physical perception of things as a wave of cold envelops him. His eyes shoot open to see only a blur, and he's moving, fast, and then he _crashes_ into something hard.

"Lloyd! Kai!" People are shouting, and he's disoriented, but he blinks, finds that he's lying flat on his back, when did that happen? More importantly, where'd Lloyd go?

"Are you okay?"

Ah, there he is; Kai is just shoving at the floor to get himself upright when he spots his little brother across the room, getting to his feet just as dazedly as Kai feels. "M'good," he says, working to a sitting-up position with Nya’s help, just as Lloyd has Jay and Cole with him, helping him up. There's a path there, where, from the look of things, the Green Ninja was blasted straight through the crowded room, taking out villagers as he went, but everyone has gotten to their feet and scurried out of the way, crowding to the edges of the room warily.

(Kai, near a wall that he had not been near before, also has exactly zero villagers in that one particular direction. So they were probably blasted apart. Great sign. Nothing troubling about that.)

"What was  _that_ ..?" his sister asks.

“The Ice Emperor,” Lloyd says at once, and then falters, looking to Sorla. “I... I think. Even if it’s not, whatever it was—“ he glances at Kai— “it knows we’re here and it’s coming for a fight.”

“Yeah?” Kai starts, and he’s shaking but he stands, drags himself forward, despite the glare he can feel Nya giving him that probably translates to  _stay put, you idiot_ . The villagers are nervous, the ninja are nervous,  _he’s_ nervous, they could all use the good news he has — “Let ‘im come,” he says, and the effect is slightly off because he has to lean on his sister, but he flicks his hand in the air and there’s  _flame_ . He lets it flare into a fireball and pitches it into the empty pit of wood, where it catches at once, burning just as fierce and stubborn and bright as his heart is— “Because we got firepower now.”

-

Lloyd has, in Nya’s words, an idiot Fire Ninja for a brother. He loves ‘im, but sheesh, seriously.

The attack from the Ice Emperor (at least it was _probably_ that guy, no one has any better guesses) went for the one of them whose powers would pose the biggest threat to an ice-based empire. Wherever this person gets their power from, it’s similar enough to Lloyd’s own that it had almost turned his rescue attempt into a huge failure: right at the end, when he and Kai had almost traced the energy back to its source, the cold (cold  _cold_ ) somehow  _latched on _ to their combined energies.

It’s... possible, that Lloyd might have overreacted a little when he sent an explosion of energy hurtling down the link that their enemy tried to create, given that the backlash was strong enough to blast both ninja clear off the metaphysical plane that they’d been drawn into. But he’d seen, and to some degree _felt_ what it had done to Kai, and— and he couldn’t risk that it might stop his brother’s heart again—

A risk that Kai,  of course , took practically as soon as he could. What was he thinking?! _Was_ he thinking? Fire was what drew the attack in the first place, to go and not only call his element again but  that _much_ of it— it was a typical Kai display of bravado, sure, it elicited a lot of cheering, but it ended with the red ninja passing out.

(Lucky thing Nya was supporting him, or he’d have fallen into the fire he just made, too.)

“He overexerted himself, is all,” is Sorla’s verdict, a very tense minute after that. “His power is not fully returned. It’s a bit like a sprain; too much pressure before it healed.”

Again: typical Kai. The others call him a hothead for a reason.

But the ninja all heave a sigh of relief, and go about making him comfortable, which is worlds easier than before, now that there’s a source of heat other than piling on top of each other. Also, the villagers are even _more_ eager to help in any way, with awed whispers of “Fire Maker” punctuating every sentence. That’s sure to be interesting, once Kai wakes up.

He will wake up, they’re not worried about that, but Lloyd’s taken himself off of patrol rotation so that he’ll be nearby if his brother goes deathly-cold again.  (That moment right after he’d summoned the flame had been terrible— they’d had no warning, only a choked-off sound and then their brother was unresponsive and something was  wrong , Lloyd knew, felt it in his bones— he’d reached out with green and— the thing attacking was  so cold —)

So he’s staying close, and he’s been talking with Sorla. She’s shown him a map, given him a possibility, a chance that he’s going to go for as soon as he knows Kai’s not in immediate danger. He’ll find Zane, and once they have both the Fire  _and_ Ice Ninja, they can keep each other safe and find out what it is that’s so deeply wrong with this realm.


	2. Something is Wrong in the Empire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> best read shortly after the first chapter. parallels ahoy.

There is something wrong in his realm. He knows it, feels it in his metal bones, and since he also knows that no one else will be able to sense it, he cannot afford to ignore it.

As the Ice Emperor, his power reaches far and wide, surrounding and encasing the inhabitants of whole villages and ensuring their safety either by his own hand or by Boreal’s breath. They are sheltered in the ice, protected from harm of any kind. 

But there is something _ wrong_. He can feel it, the dim sense of an element not his own, struggling to catch light and threaten his people’s safety—

The threat is minimal, however. Repeatedly, it is snuffed out, dying under the ferocity of the cold that he provides to his realm; he need not expend any conscious effort. Through his staff, the cold is _ alive _ and will consume every fire before it can be lit. The last enduring flames, stubbornly and recklessly fed by the last of the western villagers, had finally been extinguished only days ago. Fire cannot live here.

Yet it is Fire that he senses, however weak it may be.

He is unrelenting. No matter how minimal the threat, he will protect his people from the barest hint of flame. For hours, it comes and goes, and the power of his staff over the land stifles every flare.

Soon enough, it quiets, and without the repeated flare-ups, the cold will be able to seep into the source and freeze it altogether. That will not require his focus, so he turns his mind to other matters.

Fire is not the only Element he senses. There are others, sources of energy calling to him from a plane that he does not understand, and does not wish to. He has what he needs to rule his land, to keep his people safe. He has the Samurai to extend his reach, Boreal to show his might, and Vex to advise him. He has his staff, and with it, the power to _ protect_.

Vex would advise that he seek more power. He trusts his adviser without reserve, but at the same time, he is loathe to pursue trouble when the final fire has at long last been extinguished and they are now so close to complete, absolute peace. This is a way in which he is similar to Grimfax, whose experience has proven valuable time and time again. There is no need to take risks, not until that last village is fully secured.

Then, perhaps, he will turn to Vex for advice as he does for everything else. Vex has always had an answer, no matter the subject — but this time would be different, for the Emperor is unique in his power (or so he thought). No one else under his vast reign, including his advisor, has exhibited control over any element, and Vex always pointed to that fact as proof of his right to rule.

It is reasonable that there are other lands, too far away for even his staff to reach, and for their rulers to have power similar to his own. He cannot remember ever sensing anything other than his own elemental energy, but perhaps these others were present before Grimfax usurped his throne (and was suitably punished). That is his first theory, at any rate, and when the time comes to seek advice on the matter, Vex will surely know, so there is no need to theorize further.

He does indulge in contemplating what he senses, however. These new energies, appearing at the edges of his perception only a few weeks ago, are much weaker than his own. They remind him of the few times he has been without his staff, the promptly-quelled rebellions of those who did not yet know the peace of Ice. He does rely on his staff to rule over so large a land, but it is not the source of his power.

(This leads him to ever-so-briefly consider what that source might be, for the thousandth, millionth time; a thing that matters little so long as he _ has _ his power, Vex says, but that he remains idly curious about. These others could possibly hold answers, and that would be something worth pursuing — again, though, only after his land is wholly secure.)

There is no indication of what these energies _ are_, aside from Fire, only what they are not: not Fire, and certainly not Ice. They are unfamiliar, and for now, such specificity is unimportant. He senses them only peripherally, as he has since they appeared, and he is content to let it remain that way. The only pertinent information he gathers is that they (an indistinct number of separate sources of energy) are stronger than Fire, which has been impaired in some way other than the Emperor’s own power. It is a weakness that he has slowly been exploiting, building up to this day when the threat has been actively attempting to strengthen itself.

Regardless of weakness, fire is fire, and even if there were no other new elemental energies — potentially people with answers to his forgotten past — he would not hold back. It is a threat to his empire. He will protect his people.

-

Hours pass, and the Emperor’s vigilance does not falter (hours are nothing to him, not after decades), but to an extent, his awareness drifts, connecting briefly with the sleeping Boreal, and then the Samurai and his Ice over the land at large. He is only fully aware of bits and pieces, more than enough to rule when there is no active opposition. He has spent years at a time in this manner, only resuming full physical awareness when Vex had something to report or advise about.

The most recent report was of Grimfax’s legion of Samurai departing to secure the western village. He created new soldiers to bolster their numbers, ones made purely of Ice, to increase the otherwise human legion and ensure that the final rebellious village is secured swiftly. Soon, they will be safe.

The legion has been gone for some time when the Emperor senses a flicker of Fire stirring again. The energy strengthens in mere minutes, and he begins to shift his focus—

He is not fast enough. _ There are flames. _ In his Empire. He senses them, he _ feels _ that there are flames again, no, no, the last fire was extinguished! He will not allow this. He is the Emperor of Ice and _ he will not allow this._

His focus shifted, he reaches out nearly to the full extent that his staff allows, pushing his power through Ice until he can strike, vicious, at the burning energy. The flames stutter out at once, and he presses further, seeking to freeze the heart and ideally the source, a quick end to this threat—

Until he feels another energy, one of the ones he had previously chosen to look over, and now he regrets that choice, regrets not asking Vex like he does for everything else, he _ always _ turns to Vex, he should have this time too, because this new energy is _ so. much. stronger. _ It keeps his power at bay with ease, a barrage that resembles fire for its ferocity, slowly unfreezing his target.

The Emperor withdraws, just slightly. He shuts his eyes, shuts out all distractions, and opts for a new method of attack.

His power comes from a place he does not understand, has never needed to understand thanks to his staff. Now, he delves deep into his power; this time, the staff will only be a boost to gain the upper hand instead of being the majority of his strength. Elemental energy has some kind of root in a plane other than the physical, and this is what he delves into.

The stronger other-energy has relented its attack somewhat, and he seizes the opportunity to rush at the opening in its defense of Fire. Unhindered by any distractions, he breaks through easily and taps into the power of the staff to spread his own power between Fire and— Green. The other energy, strong, rushing to meet his renewed attack, is just _ green,_ and he is uncertain how he is perceiving a _ colour _ of all things when he is definitely not visually seeing anything.

It is of no consequence. His own energy is between that of Fire and Green, and while the latter is still proving to be a hindrance, it cannot directly stop his attack on the former. He is preventing the raw Green power from destroying his Ice, which he builds up and up, creating a metaphysical wall that the weaker energy will not be able to melt — and just as his power will not melt, neither will his Empire, his people.

Green is spiraling wildly, frenetic, tendrils of power somehow defending Fire’s heart from within, and that is a mystery but not an important one: those wisps will not suffice for long.

He strengthens his hold, and his staff strengthens him further, and he feels the life that fuels Fire _ falter._ Not entirely, but enough to prove that this enemy can definitely be beaten. What will be more difficult is Green, which floods in and combats his Ice with brute force, a mighty display of power that evokes momentary awe — after he guarantees his people’s safety by defeating his enemy, perhaps this incredible energy will see that they could be allies—

The entirety of Fire’s energy wavers again under the power of Ice, and Green swoops in with renewed force. The energy collides with his own, wave after wave, unrelenting and emanating _ fury._ Puzzling, that it can somehow project both colour and emotion to his perception in this non-physical place, but he definitely senses anger, and — fear? — as it pummels into him from both inside and outside the wall he created. He, with the staff, is stronger, and counters with his own power, and between the two energies, Fire is being destroyed two ways at once—

There is a pause, not from the combatants but from the weaker energy, where it stops struggling for just an instant before rapidly gaining strength, burning bright and hot hot _ hot, _ and Fire _ explodes,_ Ice is faced with an _ INFERNO—_

His wall is melted away in an instant. He tries to fight back, tries to conquer it with brute force, but the wretched dangerous _ burning _ energy is blasting, joined all at once by Green, and he is overpowered and forced back, back, until there is only Fire and the Green Energy powering it.

The two powers are, in fact, connected — one gains power from the other, and vice versa, and it is incredible. He has felt enough of their dangerous touch, and he attempts to retreat, pulling his power back to himself, but they are tracing his energy, he realizes all at once that he has only one hope of escaping before they reach his power source and destroy him—

He reaches directly for the staff’s power, in a way he has never been able to do before on the physical plane, and _ instantly _ he is overwhelmed. There is no mind behind its power, but all the same he has to fight for the control to reach out and grasp at the combined energies of his foes—

It— _ no— it’s _ them,_ they’re— _

The staff pushes him past a limit he never knew he had, and the moment he touches the combined energies rushing at him, he recognizes his brothers. Zane shoves away from the horrific power tearing at his mind and _ latches _ on to Kai and Lloyd with all his might.

They don’t recognize him— of course they don’t, why would they— he has to tell them— he felt anger from Lloyd earlier, he has to communicate through emotion, but there’s too _ much _ emotion, a dizzying rush of _ feeling _ and he can’t bring any one to the surface more than another, he’s in shock— shock horror relief fear joy guilt and he’s desperate, _ desperate _ but that’s not enough he has to— he has to—

He’s trying to create a link and as soon as he does, Lloyd sends an explosion of energy hurtling at him no _ no no PLEASE NO—_

The force of the explosion is more than strong enough to blast him back to the physical plane. When he opens his eyes he is mid-air, hurtling from his throne over the edge of the steps and careening into a wall. The collision is significant enough that he blacks out.

-

When he comes to, Vex is there, helping him to his feet and asking what happened.

The Emperor answers in terse words. He is not too prideful to admit defeat, and he will need his adviser’s help — Vex, who has always helped him, who has been there as long as he can remember — to defeat these enemies of the Empire.

The village must be secured from these threats. Then, as soon as he knows his people are not in immediate danger, he will find Fire and Green. He will snuff out their energy, and that of the others he has not yet encountered, and he will end that which is so deeply wrong in his realm.


End file.
